A Time to Reflect...

Winter makes me moody, but it also offers great time for introspection. This must be due, in part, to the fact that I spend more time alone, and less out enjoying the world with friends. In Minneapolis, I had learned to take up outdoor hobbies in the winter, in order to ward off the inevitability of cabin fever. I would go snowshoing out on the city's lakes, where the ice was always thick enough by December to support ice-fishing, let alone one small-statured snowshoer. Even this, though, was often a solitary activity: it is hard to convince others to join. In the winter, people prioritize and maximize their time outdoors, and I found that my snowshoing schedule was unlikely to sync up with the outdoor recreations of many others.

This weekend, a full snow that finally promises to stick has blanketed the ground in Pittsburgh. I rather enjoy the aesthetic of clean, white snow on the roofs of red-brick row-houses. The city seems like a Norman Rockwell painting to me-- old, colonial Americana.

Near Frick Park, where the homes are not packed as tightly together, there is more snow-- large front lawns are blanketed with thin layers of it, and the branches of pine trees within the park are visibly weighed down by piles of it. I like watching the branches shake, and the snowflakes catapult down as if thrown by a snow-blower. I imagine that this happens either as a matter of physics, or from the intrusion of some animal that climbs the tree's trunk and inadvertantly nudges a branch.

There's no birdsong in the park today-- they have all flown south. But even in the blankness of a snowy landscape, I can see signs of life. This is the time of year when you can easily observe animal tracks. Some of the paths that crisscross the park paths were clearly left by dogs-- neat, tidy paw-prints. But there is evidence of other creatures, too. Rabbits have left their thumpings on the snow, straying from the paths towards invisible burrows, and I see what appears to me to be deer prints, as well.

I am reminded, again, of the real color of fresh snow, as the sun begins to wane in the sky (the days have gotten quite short). My part of Frick park is mostly open-- a somewhat wide expanse of flat ground encircled by trees. Here, the sun hits the snow-- unobstructed by branches. I begin to notice how different dips and ledges in the snowbanks made up from small elevations underneath can change colors, casting watered out blue or purple shadows.

The sky is also quite clear and dry, not like how cloudy it was before the snow arrived. Here, I am left to contemplate, too, the idea of rejuvenation in nature. We have weathered a storm (albeit not a bad one), and the clouds have parted and the sky has opened up in a sort of divine way.

Rain

The weather in Pittsburgh has not been good recently. For the most part, we have alternated between light snowfalls and rainstorms, and the sky has stayed a permanent grey. The days are shorter, now, and I need to be more conscientious about my time at the park.

When it gets cold in Minnesota, it gets very cold, but for the most part, it is a dry cold that stings your face, burns your throat, dries out your lungs in such a way that you feel hollow and raspy. Here, with Lake Erie not far away (in the grand scheme of things), we get a damper type of cold, and I have trouble deciding for myself which type of cold is worse. Sure, snot never freezes to my face in Pittsburgh, but there is a lingering dampness that chills your bones, and more wind, and many, many more clouds. Not gentle stringy clouds, either: thick, robust grey cumuli that block out the sun. It is cloudier in the summers here, too, of course. I think being in such a narrow valley surrounded by so many hills gives Pittsburgh a sort of snow globe affect: the moisture in the air has nowhere to go, so it just hangs around.

The dirt in the park is damp, soft the way you'd expect manure on a farm to be. Thankfully, it has a better aromatic quality than manure, though. There's a real, musky richness to it. That moisture in the air-- I can only assume-- also means that the grass does not dry out in quite the same way that it would back home. By April, when the snows recede in Minneapolis, you start to notice that the ground has been flattened out like hay laid out for a horse. Here it stays thick and green, and although nothing will sprout out of the soft, nutrient rich dirt for many months, it seems to be enough to sustain what has already grown-- at least for now, and at least in Frick Park.

There are signs of man-erosion in the park, where heavy equipment has been rolled onto the grass, or where generations of people have discovered shortcuts, and this is the time of year that the mud from after a rain-- like we had last night-- gets tracked back onto the concrete paths by people's shoes. The playground nearby is empty. I go over and tap one of the hollow metal poles that supports the jungle gym, and it is icy and rings a bit louder than it used to. This is not the type of ground that you want your children to fall headfirst on: cold hurts.

The squirrels are gone, and the park employees are busy doing some landscaping on the park's edge, certainly trying to sneak work in before we get our first snowfall that actually sticks-- that doesn't immediately run off down the straight, narrow roads that climb the hill from the river.

I spoke with a coworker who lives near here the other day, and she told me about how it is too cold now for her and her husband to work their garden, how they have a "winter project": constructing a headboard for their bed out of the wood from an old door. I ponder this for a bit. Recycling can indeed mean many things-- unexpected things.

And she tells me that she and her husband will continue their morning walks along the path that abuts the river. We talk about how nice it is down there-- it's the path that stretches from Pittsburgh to Washington, the one that avid cyclists ride the whole length of to prove themselves. I've seen children that I know on the bike path with their parents, and now I'm learning about my coworker-- a middle aged woman who has lived near here her entire life-- using it for her walks. It is a community gathering place, in a sense.

I walk down the hill from the patch of park with its sad, ghost white trees, their leaves raked up into piles. I go through the fog, and down to where the bike path is. It is behind a chain-link fence, and a few people are using it. The blacktop looks fresh and new, and is split down the middle by a dotted bright yellow line. But it seems to me a human imposition: this is not our natural space. We have contained nature in between two fences, in fact, and the only thing growing is weeds and grass along the path's shoulders.

The greyness-- and dampness-- of the day makes me feel a bit somber, so I head home.

Snow

There is a dusting of snow in the park this morning, which reminds me so much of the differences between the winters here in Pittsburgh and what we experience back in Minnesota. This snow won't last. It will not stay cold enough for long enough, and perhaps the topography also allows for snow to melt and run off into the river better here than it does on flat plains, where it seems to pile on with each successive storm.

Leaves stick out from the thin dusting, very dry and grey now. I am glad that the squirrels have had their opportunity to store food for the winter, although I know now from research that squirrels do not hibernate. Which causes me to wonder: where do they go? I never see squirrels moving around very much during winter months. I suppose that they are easier prey for predators against a white landscape, such as this. But what eats squirrels? Birds of prey? In Minnesota, there was a large population of hawks, kestrels and falcons, some of which may be big enough to haul away a squirrel in its claws. There is a sanctuary there for them, actually, along the Mississippi River, and occasionally you may see one flying, even above the densely populated city, where light and noise pollution ought to scare them off. It occurs to me that I do not see many of these types of birds in Western Pennsylvania, if at all. But perhaps I have not been looking hard enough. Perhaps now, on days when the sky is clear and cloudless and they are not blocked out by the leaves of trees, is the right time to start looking.

People do not seem to inhabit the park in the same density as I am accustomed too now, either. There is a barrenness to it, even though some grass still sticks out through the thin layer of fluffy snow. As the cold settles in, I wonder how well the park will function as a community gathering space. The thickets of wood here does not well suit snowshoing or cross-country skiing; besides, neither of these are big pastimes in Pennsylvania anyway, and the snow rarely accumulates enough to facilitate doing either.

When the weather is warm and spring-like, the paths are crowded and there are people in almost every clearing. It will be interesting to see how winter affects this landscape.

Squirrels, etc.

As I often see squirrels in Frick Park these late Fall days (it seems that the cooling down that comes before winter inspires some urgency in them), I've begun to think a bit more about them. When I first moved to Pittsburgh from Minneapolis, I mentioned-- in passing-- albino squirrels to a friend of mine. They are a common sight back home: bleach white, with laser red eyes. There is a spookiness about their presence, and I know that it is wrong, but that spookiness always sort of reminded me about why animals-- and people-- with albinism in some cultures are regarded as harbingers of death.

My friend had never heard of such a thing. Indeed, in Pittsburgh I have never seen one. Research that I have done since has not answered for me very conclusively if these squirrels are a species unto themselves, or just a more common squirrel that truly does have some genetic abnormality. I have concluded, however, that I was mistaken in my long held belief that they were so numerous in Minneapolis because of their ability to camouflage well in the snowdrifts of winter: there are apparently many colonies of albino squirrels around the country, and several of these colonies are located in the snow-less South.

I contemplate all of this as I sit in Frick Park, on a day approaching Halloween, that is crisp, cool and sunny. The squirrels seem less numerous now than they do in the warm months, but I can see them scurrying up or down the occasional tree. I remember when I used to live in a house on Minneapolis's Southside: an old American Foursquare in an old neighborhood that hugged a highway which looped around downtown. In this house (revamped into a four-plex) we had an infestation of squirrels one winter, and in the Spring, one of them managed to chew through the ceiling and was routinely poking his head out through a hole and into the upper level apartment. Our maintenance man set out poison in the attic, and the next squirrel I saw was dead on the back lawn.

I retrieved a shovel from my parents house the day that I encountered the squirrel, and buried it a few feet deep in the soft, Spring ground. A few days later, we had a ceremony for it in the backyard, where my roommate burned white sage, and I recited a sort of elegy I had written. This squirrel had been dutifully gathering nuts for his family, had been doing the things that were natural and instinctual to him, ensuring his own survival. And, as his bad luck would have it, he happened to get in our way.

It interests me, now, to think about the convergence of human society and of the society of squirrels-- the society of *all* of nature, really. As I watch the squirrels clawing up and down trees to the deep, cave-like holes where they stash and burrow food, I am left to wonder what-- if anything-- they have retrieved this Fall from one of the robust blue garbage cans near the parks trails. I've seen squirrels once in a while poking their heads out from inside of those, or heard them thrashing around against a can's plastic walls. What could they find in their that provides for them an appropriate amount of nourishment? What has our presence-- our human society-- done for them that is good?

Venturing

I ventured the other day to the Sandcastle Riverplex, an open park and event space which lies on the southern bank of the Monongahela. This spot is of particular interest, since the West Run estuary empties into the river at this point. The banks are low, and from the thicket of trees that line the water, I can get just close enough to see the Run funneling out into the Mon like a waterfall through a wide, open sewage pipe.

Separating the Riverplex from the railroad tracks and the rest of the borough of Homestead is the Steel Valley bike trail, which carries a constant stream of travelers from its genesis on the Southside, past concrete plants at the base of steep river bluffs, before it joins with a larger trail that continues onward all the way through Maryland to Washington, approximately charting the course of the Mon. This day, as any day, there are all types of folks riding bikes along the trail-- some serious, dressed in full-body workout suits, and some casual.

I want to compare this place to Frick Park, and among the things that I notice is that the Riverplex is wide and open, cleared of trees, and that the grass here is springtime green and neatly trimmed. What trees have been planted above the thickets on the bank have an artificial quality to them: they are immature, and placed meticulously in their spots by some landscaper. The place reminds me of a well-maintained English garden.

Even on the banks of the Mon themselves, the trees seem younger, shorter, and thinner than what I am used to at Frick. I assume that the old growth trees-- once downed by lightning, or flood-- get carried away with the river. But I speculate, also, that as this area was once largely industrial, perhaps there was old-growth forest that was simply cleared away. I decide to take a leaf and slab of bark with me from the Riverplex back to Frick to see if I can compare it with another tree's.

The leaf is thin and serrated around its edge, like a bay-leaf. It is a bit waxy or glossy to feel. The bark is a robust brown, heavy and full of life.

I am not much for identifying trees, but I do find what I think to be a match in Frick Park, only here the tree shows its age: there are deep, scar-like crevices up and down its trunk, and branches shooting off in complete disorder. Its leaves are a bit wilt-ier and frailer than those of its "brother" along the river's banks.

When I get home, I play around on my computer to see if I can identify the tree, googling "trees of Pittsburgh," and find a source from the Phipps Conservatory that I think may be of some help. It has a long, intimidating list of trees, organized by their common names (I do not have the patience for Latin), and no images or descriptions are shown until I click on the entry titles. I am left to ponder a bit on what it means to be at the crossroads of the Northeast and Midwest, where forest meets forest, where one climate meets another, and to ponder on the complexity and variety of trees, and how it has been so rare for me to notice their distinctness.

After sometime, I believe that I have found my tree. I think it is a Black Cherry, or a Hackberry, the latter of which-- I learn-- grows abundantly in river valleys. These are beautiful, folksy names. To me, they give the trees personality, lend them a rhythm. I haven't ever thought so much about trees before, but even the names are beautiful in their grittiness.

Playing in the Park

The weather has taken a turn. It is cool-- not cold, at least not by my seasoned Midwestern standards-- but cool, nonetheless. I have abandoned short sleeves.

But it occurs to me as I am sitting in the park that this weather is not unlike how it feels in early Spring, and if I de-contextualize it-- forget that a few weeks ago the temperatures were in the Summery mid-70's-- it becomes rather pleasant. I am reminded of the course readings this week, how Sheryl St. Germain sees signs, albeit small ones, of Spring and the continuation of life and of renewal, even in the dead of an Iowa winter.

There are more families in the park today than usual, and I wonder if this thought has occurred to the parents, as well. Maybe, like me, they left their homes this morning to the sight of dewy perspiration-- thawed out frosts, perhaps-- on car windshields, and braced themselves against cold. Maybe, like me, they had resigned themselves to the idea this morning that the next several months of cold were upon us. And maybe, like me, as the day has warmed gradually, they have realized that the time they have to spend comfortably outside with children and other family members is increasingly limited.

Outside of a large den of trees, there is an open spot of grass just large enough for a father to throw a football back and forth with his son. The dad can throw a spiral, but the son cannot. Near to them, there is a strip of asphalt that leads out to the street, and they have positioned themselves in such a way to avoid the ball going there, and perhaps to avoid the kid running absentmindedly after it.

Not far from them there is a very young girl-- four or five years old, I'd guess-- gathering leaves, maybe some of the same leaves that I saw on my last visit. She may be related to them, but I cannot be sure. There are adults sitting on a few of the benches, some old enough to be grandparents. In this community, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings and cousins all work communally to raise children in parks while parents work long hours at the Waterfront, or in Squirrel Hill, or deeper into the city.

Here, I am seeing the community engage with the park, and am struck again by its value. As I examine the park itself over time, I may begin to think about the larger questions surrounding park design and layout, how residents' access to park space can be hindered or improved, and the role that the park plays not just as community gathering space, but as community advocate and agent: a place that metaphorical gives lifeblood to the surrounding neighborhoods, and serves as a point of pride.

I realize, now, from my last observation of the maintenance worker, that he was doing his own small part to instill pride and to make the park something that can be showcased and shown off. It is ingenuous for me to judge him; certainly, he has a role. His leaf-blowing antics may distract me from my point of interest from time-to-time (the leaves themselves), but ultimately, he has as much right to this space as I do.

Fall Settles In

An autumnal chill has settled over Frick Park, and a recent rain has left the grass dewy. Clover is sprouting in little clusters-- the whole park is as green as the summer, but it is a grey, breezy September day.

I never mentioned the birch trees before. They are tall and brittle, dropping thin slabs of bark on the pedestrian paths they stretch over. Today, I pick up a piece, and am surprised by its softness. I don’t know what I had expected. Fragility, maybe: perhaps that it would break apart into ashes in my hand. The piece is ashy—or gritty, maybe, a membrane of dirt coating the side that had adhered to the trunk of one of the nearby trees—but it is also sturdy, and velvety soft on its outside.

There is a man standing at the southeastern entrance, the only other person I see. He is uphill from me, and seems to be looking down in a sort of predatory way. Or maybe he suspects that I am lost. I try to look busy for a few minutes. Eventually, he saunters over to a bush, and produces from it a leaf-blower. He turns it on, aiming it thirty degrees or so down towards the path, blowing a tempest of early Fall leaves into chaos and towards a growing pile off of the path. He is a park employee, I assume. He is “beautifying”—moving nature out of the way for the joggers that will visit the park.

 The leaves themselves are still thick, slick, and veiny, but they have fully browned. Not browned, really—from a distance, they look Casper white. But up close, they are clearly beige. I pick one of these up, as well, turn it over in my hands, twirl it by the stem. It has the same sturdy—but dry ashy—quality of the birch bark, and I’m left to wonder a bit about this time of year, when some things are still alive, but others are clearly in the process of annual deterioration. Most of the trees are bare, now. Their dropped leaves don’t layer on the ground, but are scattered here or there in uneven assemblages.

I also begin to notice—for the first time of my visits here—the birds. There are some pigeons that have found their way from the city surrounding the park, and other dove-like birds, but mostly I see finches, sparrows and thrushes—a pretty standard collection in a pretty standard urban park. They are busy; they stay close to the ground, mostly, and flock off in cacophony if I crunch a leaf underneath my foot or make any other disturbing noise too close to them. I don’t usually notice them unless or until they fly off. Their feathers are too demure: the same light brown with speckles that the leaves have, and they camouflage too well.

The park employee has finished blowing the leaves, and meets up with a coworker who has parked his truck near that southeastern entrance. The second man is wearing a neon orange vest, the brightest color in the park, and brighter, even, than the siding of houses that I can see uphill and beyond. They both light up a cigarette (I wonder if they are supposed to, on park property, and all) and I move on.